We Know What's Coming...

 A small part of an "op-ed" in The Washington Post by Michael Saag, a professor of medicine and infectious diseases and virology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He writes about the "Delta variant of Covid now washing across Alabama and other states:

"We know what’s coming. We’ve experienced this trauma before. We don’t want to do this again, but the die is already cast. My fellow health-care workers are being thrown back into the fire, like servicemen and women going back for a third tour of duty in a war zone. This week alone, one infectious-disease colleague and four ER physicians, all fully vaccinated, have become ill with the variant. This is very different from what we experienced before. Delta is different".

 

The full column is HERE.

Civil Rights Era Reminder

 

Mug shot of Dr. Moses W. Jones, M.D., taken after his arrest on February 21, 1956 for his role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

 "Montgomery officials indicted 89 boycott leaders, including King, for violating Alabama’s 1921 anti-boycott law. King’s trial, State of Alabama v. M. L. King, Jr., held 19–22 March, ended with his conviction, but no one else was brought to trial."

(Among those who testified during the trial was my friend, the late Rev. Robert Graetz.)

     I stumbled across Dr. Jones grave during a recent visit to Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery. 

    He was elected as second Vice President of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) on December 5, 1955 after the arrest of Rosa Parks. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr, was elected President.

   The MIA controlled the Montgomery bus boycott.

8 of 9 Members of Congress Join Anti-Roe v Wade Effort

 

 

     As expected, all but one of the nine-members of the Alabama Congressional delegation want to overturn Roe v Wade. 

     The only exception is the only Democrat and the only member capable of giving birth. Rep. Terri Sewell. 

     The remainder of the delegation is made up of white male Republicans.

     In all, 228 Republican members of Congress have signed on to legislation that a CNN story describes like this:

"The new brief is the latest filing in a dispute that will be heard next term and represents the most significant abortion-related case the justices have taken up in nearly a half a century. The 6-3 conservative court, bolstered by three of former President Donald Trump's appointees, could gut, or invalidate court precedent, and that's what the GOP lawmakers are calling for."

The full CNN story is HERE.

Car Cities USA...and Those That are NOT (Spoiler: Alabama.)

I-85 Traffic in Montgomery, Alabama

 

     The worst 150 U.S. cities in which to live if you do not own a car? The list includes all four of Alabama's larger cities:

Montgomery 149 (next to last in the U.S.!)

Huntsville 147

Mobile 145

Birmingham 143

 

All four of Alabama's cities are on the list of cities that are NOT good places to live if you do not have a car, according to a N.Y. Times story based on a LawnStarter ranking.

 

"Shreveport, La., came in last, with the lowest safety score in the bunch. Like many southern cities, it also suffered in the rankings because of a humid climate inhospitable to walking or biking, and poor commuting systems. 

San Francisco, despite ranking 81st among the 150 cities for safety, came out on top, largely because of its mild climate and high commuting scores (and despite its challenging hills). In fact, West Coast cities took four of the top 10 spots, their mild climates helping move the needle."

The FULL N.Y. Times story is HERE.

The lawnstarter ranking is HERE.

"You tell me!"

 

 That's what Governor Ivey told a reporter who asked what the state can do to convince people to be vaccinated.

Does the buck stop on the reporter's desk?

And the  newest vaccination rate data, as of today, shows Alabama still dead last:

 

51. Alabama
Number of people fully vaccinated: 1,677,048
Percentage of population fully vaccinated: 34.2

Full report is HERE.

Finally! The only bloom so far on the Night Blooming Cereus plant opened last night!

 Here are some photos taken during the blooming event!

 On the left, this morning, the bloom closes and will die.

Something unusual with the bloom, this year, the usual intense aroma was missing! I'll have to research that and find out if there is something I did...or did not do...to cause that!

     I'm hopeful there will be other blooms between now and the return of cold weather.

Provoking Trouble????

 (an NPR Headline:)

Chinese Billionaire Sun Dawu Is Sentenced To 18 Years For 'Provoking Trouble' 

(story is HERE)

 

     How many people do you know here in the U.S. who would be in jail right now if we outlawed "provoking trouble"? The late Rep. John Lewis? Rev. & Mrs. Robert Graetz? Rosa Parks?

Night Blooming Cereus

 ..no bloom yet....but all is well. Notice how the curve upward continues to increase!

 

Tonight or tomorrow night looks like blooming time!

Alabama Tax Revenue Jumps....

 

....in fact Alabama revenue has increased more than all of the other Southeastern States!

PEW REPORTS:

Despite historic declines in the first half of 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, tax revenue was on the mend in most states by the end of the year. Boosted by widespread gains in the fourth quarter, total state tax collections had recovered to just 1.9% below their pre-pandemic levels by the close of 2020, after adjusting for inflation, and receipts in 20 states had rebounded fully. Overall, state tax revenue has been on track to bounce back far faster than it did after the Great Recession.

Tax Revenue in Four Quarters Ending Q4 2020 Compared With Prior Year, Adjusted for Inflation:

Alabama +2.8

Tennessee +2.6

Georgia +1.5

S. Carolina +0.06

N. Carolina +0.01

Arkansas -0.04

Mississippi -0.7

Louisiana -4.02

Florida -6.3

See the full PEW report HERE.

 

 

This month's Full Moon

 

Emmett Till

I stumbled across two online postings regarding Emmett Till this week. One is an article in The Atlantic detailing what is know, and what is supposed, about the 1955 torture/murder of the Chicago teenager in Mississippi.

The other is a photograph of his body. It is the 25th photo in THIS SERIES online. 

I had heard this photo described, but had never see it. It is as horrible as advertised. Till's mother insisted he be in an open coffin so people could see what the murderers had done to her son. The photo continues that effort, even now.

 

 The Atlantic article is HERE.

Dirt covered the spot where Till was beaten, and where investigators believe he was killed. Andrews thinks he was strung from the ceiling, to make the beating easier. The truth is, nobody knows exactly what happened in the barn, and any evidence is long gone. Andrews pointed to the central rafter.

“That right there is where he was hung at.”

Florida Supreme Court Justice, in Montgomery, Recorded Call to Eliminate Death Penalth

 

In a video interview posthumously released on the anniversary of the first modern exoneration of a Florida death-row prisoner, former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerald Kogan has called for abolition of the state’s death penalty. “I believe that the death penalty should absolutely not be a punishment delivered by the State of Florida, or for that matter, neither any place in the United States or the world,” Kogan said.

The interview was recorded by attorney and filmmaker Ted Corless during a trip Justice Kogan took with 40 Florida anti-death penalty activists to the Equal Justice Initiative’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. Kogan died on March 4, 2021, at the age of 87. The video was released on July 16, the 48^th anniversary of the exoneration of David Keaton. Keaton was the first former death-row prisoner to be exonerated after the U.S. Supreme Court’s historic decision in Furman v. Georgia in 1972 struck down all existing U.S. death-penalty laws and ushered in the modern era of the U.S. death penalty. The 30 death-row exonerations in Florida are by far the most in the nation.

In the video, Justice Kogan speaks about his 60-year journey as a member of the Florida bar from death-penalty supporter to death-penalty opponent. He voices concerns over the grave issues he witnessed throughout his career regarding the administration of capital punishment. Foremost among those concerns, he says, are the risk of executing innocent people and the punishment’s inherent unfairness. “We are executing people who probably are innocent,” Kogan said.

(edit)

Kogan said he was convinced Florida had executed three innocent people, though he did not name them. “We cannot bring back to life people that we made mistakes about. And we just have to do something,” Kogan urged.

Florida has executed 99 prisoners since re-enacting the death penalty after Furman. In that time, it has exonerated one wrongfully convicted death-row prisoner for every 3.3 people it has executed.

Source: The anti-death penalty group "The Death Penalty Information Center"

UPDATED: Night Blooming Cereus Update

UPDATE: no, not tonight. More than likely tomorrow!

It's Monday, and it is possible the bloom will open tonight, though I still think tomorrow night will be it.

 The tip off is when you can see more of the white part of the bloom. I'll know later in the day.😊

Poetry: Hurt

 

thinned skin

     =

BRUISED hand.

thinned love

     =

bruised heart.

      💔

USAF Happening This Morning

 One of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen will attend one of the largest aviation events in the world this week...at 101 years of age.

 

The Washington Post reports:

"One of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen, (Brig. Gen. Charles) McGee was setting off with friends and family on a private plane to EAA AirVenture at Oshkosh, where the barrier-breaking retired fighter pilot hopes to inspire the next generation of aviators, especially those of color. In 2019, nearly 700,000 people attended the conference. 

Over the course of his 30-year career in the Air Force, McGee fought in three wars and became the first Black man to command a stateside Air Force wing and a base in the integrated Air Force. He was one of 900 Black pilots who trained at the segregated Tuskegee airfield in Alabama, overcoming racism to fly patrols during World War II."

 Full story is HERE.